by Tania Carver
Paula braced herself, knowing this wouldn’t be pleasant.
There came a clatter from the kitchen. Paula jumped.
The mood broken, Phil cursed inwardly, stood up. ‘Excuse me for a moment.’
44
Suzanne was once again aware of nothing but the sound of her own breathing.
The other woman’s voice, her fellow captor - if that’s who she was - had kept her word and not spoken after her outburst. In the silence that followed, questions had massed inside Suzanne’s head, fizzing and spitting like frenzied bubbles in a boiling pan. Questions, fears, screams . . . but not hope.
Anything but hope.
She tried moving around, making herself more comfortable, relieving pressure on her back and sides, stopping her muscles cramping. There was just enough room to do that but any movement was temporary. Lack of space made sure her body always came back to rest in its original position.
She didn’t know how long she had been there. Could have been minutes or hours or days. No. Couldn’t have been days. Because she hadn’t eaten since she had been put in here. And she was getting hungry now. Not to mention wanting to pee.
As if on cue, her stomach growled.
And the pressure on her bladder increased.
Panic gripped her again as the reality of her situation took hold once more. She tried moving around, looking for a way out, throwing her tied hands against the ceiling of her chamber, hitting, hitting, breathing heavily, adding a few grunts and shouts, helping the exertion.
Nothing. She lay back, heart hammering, panting, the sound of her breathing an almost physical thing in there with her.
‘It’s better if you just lie there . . . makes it easier . . .’
The voice was back.
‘But I’m . . . I’m hungry. I need to, to go to the bathroom.’
‘Just hold it in. Hold it in.’ The voice, cautious, quiet and steady. Balanced on a tightrope where a slip would involve a long, screaming fall.
‘Hold it - how long? I can’t . . .’
‘They’ll let us out at some point. Hold it in till then.’
‘What? When?’
‘Don’t know . . .’ The calmness in the voice was beginning to crack. It struggled to return resolve. ‘They will. He will. Just, just hold on.’
Suzanne sighed, closed her eyes. It made no difference.
‘And, and don’t make so much noise.’ The voice, pleading with her. ‘Please.’
‘Why not? Maybe someone’ll hear, come and rescue us.’
‘No.’ The voice, strong now. ‘They won’t.’
‘But how do you know?’ The other voice talking to her, making some kind of communication, knowing she wasn’t alone . . . Suzanne was starting to feel hope well up inside her. She ignored the danger of that, kept talking. ‘Look, if we both do it together, shout at the same time, maybe someone will hear—’
‘No.’ The voice emphatic, almost shouting. ‘No. We can’t.’
‘It’s worth a try.’
The voice laughed. ‘That’s what the other girl said. Look what happened to her.’
‘But . . . we have to try . . .’
‘That’s what she said.’ The voice fell silent for a few seconds. Suzanne thought she had disappeared once more but when she spoke again it was clear from the quaver in her tone that she was just trying to hold herself together. ‘Yeah. What she said. Exactly what she said. D’you want the same thing to happen to you?’
Suzanne didn’t answer. Couldn’t face giving an answer.
Silence fell again.
Suzanne couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t lie in the dark any longer and not communicate. She had to talk and make the other woman talk. Whether she wanted to or not.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘please. Talk to me. I can’t . . . if we’re here we may as well talk. Please.’ The final word echoed round her box.
Silence.
‘Please . . . don’t leave me on my own. Please . . .’
A sigh. ‘How do I know you’re not a plant?’
Suzanne almost laughed. ‘A what?’
‘A plant. They’ve put you in here to see what I’m goin’ to say. You’re one of them.’
She did laugh this time. There was no humour in it. ‘I could say the same about you.’
Silence once more.
‘Look,’ said Suzanne, ‘we’re stuck here. Let’s just talk. Please.’
Another silence.
‘All right,’ the voice said eventually. ‘But if they say anything I’ll tell them it was your idea.’
‘OK.’ Suzanne nearly smiled. The hunger, the pressure on her bladder were almost forgotten with this small victory. ‘Good. Well. My name’s Suzanne. What’s yours?’
Silence.
Sadness began to envelop Suzanne. Even blacker and heavier than the darkness in the box. ‘Oh, come on. Please. You said you’d talk to me . . .’
A sigh. ‘I’m taking a risk here. A real risk.’
‘I know. Just tell me your name. Then I know who I’m talking to.’
Another sigh.
‘Julie. My name’s Julie . . .’
45
‘What are you doing?’
Fiona Welch turned, stopped. She was kneeling on the counter in Paula Harrison’s kitchen, hands in the overhead cupboards. A jar of instant coffee lay on its side, still rolling, spilling brown granules as it rocked from side to side.
‘I’m . . . just getting something . . . for the tea . . .’
Phil closed the kitchen door behind him so Paula couldn’t see in. He crossed the small kitchen until he was standing directly in front of her. She turned, still kneeling, and towered over him.
Phil’s hands were balled into fists at his side. He flexed, unflexed them. ‘Get down.’
‘I think I’ll stay here, thank you. Harder for you to be angry with me if I assume a physically dominant position.’
‘Get down.’
The sultry librarian smile appeared again. ‘Don’t you like dominant women?’ She frowned, quizzical. ‘Is that a police thing, d’you think? An alpha male response?’
He was shaking with anger. He managed to keep his voice steady. ‘If I have to come up there and get you down, you won’t like it.’
He stared at her. She locked eyes with him.
Eventually she looked away. Climbed down.
Phil made no attempt to help her.
When she was on her feet he grabbed her by the shoulders. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? This is someone’s house. Someone whose daughter’s gone missing.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Fiona said, picking up his rage and flinging it back at him, her voice an angry hiss, ‘I was looking for clues, evidence. Anything that I could find to help me build a fuller picture of Adele Harrison. I mean, that’s what I’m supposed to be doing, isn’t it? Putting together a profile?’
‘Of whoever’s taken her. Of whoever killed Julie Miller. Not . . .’ - he gestured round the kitchen. The coffee had stopped spilling out now, the jar motionless - ‘. . . this.’
Fiona Welch looked unrepentant. ‘Did you see the living room? Not a single book on a single bookshelf. DVDs, yes, but no books.’
‘So? These are real people here. With real lives. Not everyone gets all their ideas from books.’
A strange smile playing on her lips as if she was filing away his words, mentally storing them for use in some future thesis. That just made him even angrier.
‘I think it’s best if you leave. Right now.’
She blinked. Twice. ‘Why?’
‘Because I don’t want you with me any more.’
‘But Ben said—’
‘I don’t give a stuff what Ben said. I’m running this investigation and I don’t want you here. OK?’ He gestured towards the door. ‘Go. Now.’
She gave him one last look of blazing defiance and opened her mouth as if to say something then closed it again, thinking better of it. She turned and left.
‘Sorry abo
ut that,’ Phil said, putting a mug of tea down before Paula. The mug was big and looked well used. On the side it had a cartoon of a smiling woman holding a baby in one hand and a vacuum cleaner in the other and underneath was written: World’s Best Mum.
‘Is that your mug?’ said Phil.
‘Adele’s,’ said Paula, sipping from it. ‘Got it on Nadine’s first birthday. Told Adele it was from the baby.’ She choked back a sob.
‘OK,’ said Phil, putting his mug down and leaning forwards, keeping Paula focused long enough to talk to him. ‘Questions.’
She took a deep breath. Waited for him to start.
‘Tell me about Adele.’
‘Like what?’
‘What she’s like . . . how she seemed before she went missing, that kind of thing.’
Another deep breath. ‘She was . . . before she disappeared she was lovely. Best I’d seen her in years.’
Phil frowned. ‘Why? What happened before that?’
‘Well, she was . . . wild. You know what kids are like. Her dad ran off, left us. Just me, Adele and her brother.’
Phil glanced at the photos on the wall of the young soldier. ‘That’s him? Adele’s brother?’
Paula nodded, head down. ‘Was.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘He died. Just over a year ago. Helmand Province. Afghanistan.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Paula kept her head down, nodded. ‘Roadside bomb. IED, they call them now.’ She sighed. ‘Got my letter from the Prime Minister. That was somethin’.’
Her tone of voice told him it wasn’t.
‘What was his name?’
‘Wayne.’ Still looking into her lap.
‘How did Adele take it?’
Paula looked up, thought for a while before answering. ‘It hit her. Hard. She’d been runnin’ round before then, ever since her dad . . .’ She sighed. ‘. . . her dad left, she’d be off with boys, sometimes for days on end. Then she got pregnant and that was like a wake-up call, you know? Like an, an intervention.’
Too much Jeremy Kyle, thought Phil. He nodded.
‘She settled down. Got a job.’ Paula looked directly at Phil. ‘I know what you think. What DS Farrell said.’
‘What?’
‘That Adele was a prostitute. A whore. Well, she wasn’t. Maybe she liked her boyfriends to give her something, presents, and that, but she wasn’t a whore. Definitely not.’
Phil nodded. ‘She was a barmaid, wasn’t she?’
Paula nodded.
‘Whereabouts?’
‘The Freemason’s Arms, Military Road.’
‘I know it.’
Paula gave a small smile. ‘I bet you do. It’s not as bad as people think, though. And, anyway, that was just temporary for Adele. She was savin’ up, goin’ back to college. Get some A levels first. Then . . .’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Somethin’.’
‘And there was nothing to show that she was going to run away again?’
Paula leaned forward. ‘Nothin’. At all. Nothin’.’
Phil talked with her a while longer, asking more questions. Adele had left the Freemason’s Arms after a shift to walk the couple of streets to her home. She never arrived. Between Paula reporting the disappearance and DS Farrell’s investigation starting, any possible forensic evidence had been lost.
Adele had no boyfriend. Studying too hard for that, Paula said.
Phil had a look in her room but felt like there was nothing he could find there. Farrell had already done it and it was clear Paula had tidied things away.
He came back downstairs, ready to go. He looked at the photos on the wall. There was one of Paula’s two children together. Taken at a barbecue, the young man wearing an apron and holding up a speared sausage. The young woman at the side of him holding a bottle of some violently coloured alcopop, both smiling for the camera, laughing as if they would stay that way forever. Life would always be as good as that moment.
‘That’s her,’ said Paula. ‘With Wayne. Just before he went back to Afghanistan. Just before . . .’ She sighed.
Phil kept looking at them. Adele had long dark hair. Just like Julie Miller. Just like Suzanne Perry. Just like the unrecognisable corpse on the lightship.
‘It’s always us that gets hit worse, isn’t it?’ said Paula. ‘The poor people. The ones who live round here. Never them in the posh houses, is it?’
Phil thought of the body he had found the previous morning, the trip to Julie Miller’s parents house.
‘Not always,’ he said. ‘Sometimes grief is grief, whatever or whoever.’
He left.
46
Mickey Philips was bored. There were people who probably enjoyed this kind of thing, scrolling through lists on screens, working their way down printouts and sheets of numbers and details. But he wasn’t one of them.
He would watch TV shows like Spooks and CSI and watch the tech guys doing what he was doing, except on better computers and in more moodily lit offices, and it only took them a few seconds to get a match. Then they’d up and off, guns out, shouting and roping in the bad guy before the end credits.
How he wished real life could be like that.
Instead he sat at his desk in the incident room at Southway, cup of something dark and brown masquerading as coffee at his side, pen in his mouth, while he scrolled down a screen and cross-referenced the numbers he saw there with the list in front of him.
The incident room was in the bar. He had found that a little strange at first, but Phil had assured him it was always the way with a major case. Tables had become desks, upholstered seats, stools and banquettes office chairs. The pool table had been covered over and was now home to a scale-model cityscape made out of files and papers. The whiteboard had been placed in front of the shuttered bar itself, photos of the two dead girls and two missing ones linked by spider-web felt-tip lines and circled names. A constant reminder, should anyone look up from their desks, of what they were engaged in, what was at stake.
Couldn’t have been more obvious, thought Mickey, if someone had put a ticking clock next to it.
He sighed, took a sip from the mug of brown water with grit in it, grimaced, went back to his lists. This was the part of the job he hated most. He knew that didn’t make him unique but it wasn’t something he’d done too much of in his previous posting. Although, considering how he was back then, this kind of thing might not have been such a bad idea. Would have kept him out of trouble, at least.
Or in less trouble, at any rate.
He had spent most of the morning printing off photos of vans, 4×4s and pickup trucks, then had headed back to see his burger van guy. Needless to say, he wasn’t pleased to see him. After Mickey had left he had been questioned yet again, his alibi checked and rechecked and his background gone into, none of which had helped to improve his mood.
But Mickey had persevered, reminding him of the good business generated by the police working the scene of crime. When that didn’t work he played on his conscience, saying he owed it to the murdered girl to find her killer. When that appeal fell on deaf ears he told him the way he’d been questioned up to now was nothing and that he’d hit him with everything he could, both him and his van and his family if he had to, if he didn’t help. That did it. Reluctantly, the burger van guy had looked through the photos.
Mickey had watched him doing it, gauged his reaction. Eventually they had the make and model narrowed down to two: a Ford Fiesta van or a Citroën Nemo. When pressed, he had narrowed it down even further: a Citroën Nemo. Mickey had thanked him for his time and told him not to go away; he would be back if he needed to see him again. The burger van man was clearly overjoyed at that news.
So there was Mickey sitting in the office. Finding Nemo. It was all a matter of circling round, narrowing down, moving in. He had discounted any Nemos that weren’t black. Then he had discarded any that weren’t registered within a hundred-mile radius. There were still more than he would have liked. Then he made
a separate list of vans registered in Colchester. Again, still more than he would have liked. That was where he would start. If he drew a blank with that list, he would start again. He just hoped he struck lucky. If not he would have to try van hire and leasing companies and, if that yielded no results, go nationwide. But whatever happened, he knew he wouldn’t be up and running with his gun out, shouting and roping in the bad guy any time soon.
‘Hi.’
He looked up, startled out of his reverie. Fiona Welch stood before him, head on one side, smiling.
‘Oh. Hi.’ He turned away from the screen, rubbed his eyes. ‘How you doing?’
‘Fine.’ She smiled. Perched herself on the edge of his desk. ‘Thought I’d come back and start on my report. Think I’ve got enough to be going on with now.’
‘Did Phil show you round everywhere?’
She smiled but something flitted behind her eyes, something fleeting and unpleasant. ‘I’ve seen as much from him as I need to see.’
‘Good. Well, I’ll let you get on with it . . .’
Still sitting on the edge of Mickey’s desk, Fiona Welch stretched, arching her back and in the process thrusting her breasts out. He tried not to look, glancing everywhere and anywhere rather than at her, but couldn’t resist.
A quick look. And another. Nice, he thought. Very nice. Not his type, but still . . . boobs are boobs.
She finished stretching, put her arms by her side. Smiled at him.
‘So what you working on, then?’
He gestured towards the screen, the printout. ‘The van. Got a sighting of a black van near the quayside. Working my way through all possible combinations, trying to find the right one.’
She was still smiling. He returned the smile.
‘Not like the kind of thing you do. Proper, good old-fashioned police grunt work, this.’
‘Everything has its place,’ Fiona Welch said. She leaned forward, looking at the list, the screen. ‘So how d’you do it, then? How d’you find the right van?’
Mickey found it hard to look at her face. Once again her breasts were dominating his vision. Since she had leaned forward he also got an unimpeded view down her low-cut top. The curve of her breast, the edging of her bra - white lace - the shadow of her cleavage when she moved around . . .
